Never before had the CDC faced a disease outbreak as formidable as the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, which claimed more than 11 300 lives and harmed millions more. By the time the agency ended its response earlier this year, more than 3700 staffers had participated in international or domestic efforts, including 1558 who were deployed to Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.

“[A]s the epidemic intensified, [the CDC] launched the largest response in its history,” CDC Director Tom Frieden, MD, MPH, wrote in a forward to a series of articles describing how the agency worked to control the epidemic in West Africa while strengthening preparedness for Ebola in the United States (MMWR. 2016;65[supp 3]:1-106).